How low can you go? The Anatomy of a Zionist Smear Campaign PLUS: Gilad Atzmon – On Anti-Semitism

by Mary RizzoFollowed by Gilad Atzmon – On Anti-SemitismIf you want to be able to hold your head up with dignity in public, if you want to win friends and influence people, all you need to do is point out the obvious, but with a new twist. Say, “prejudice and racism is wrong,” (we can all agree on that one) “but criticising Israel makes one prejudiced and racist, for the fact that it is the State of the Jewish people.” That accusation of being an anti-Semite is the fate that awaits anyone who dare speak out loud, and especially if one critically analyses the structure of Israel and the mechanisms it uses to maintain itself as the State of the Jewish people.

Zionism means one thing: sustaining Jewish rule, dominance and control over the land that the Zionists themselves claim shall be populated exclusively (well, that’s the goal, ladies and gentlemen) by Jews. The land they themselves have determined they are entitled to is Palestine, which happened to have already been densely populated by another national group, the Palestinians. Zionism, when we take off the blinders and look at it practically, is neither a noble mission nor a liberation movement. Those who support Zionism may not approve of every instrument it uses to keep this control, but making this land into a land for Jews automatically means engaging in unethical behaviour. It means committing some atrocities and violating international law. There is no debate here, Israel was founded in an illegitimate and unilateral manner. This is a problem that has never been resolved.

Those who live in a zone that Israel needs as a buffer are in grave danger and their lives are constantly at stake. If you live in Gaza, Jerusalem, in the Golan, near the Litani, on a hill, along the aquifers, near the sea, near any border crossing, you will be sacrificed to the security needs of the Jewish State. This is Zionism. This is the reality of Israel that no pretty words can cover up.

Seeing as how it would take an iron stomach and a steel heart to approve of the crimes committed against those who must be sacrificed, it becomes fair game to point the finger at those who question the “right” of Israel to act so aggressively. This is where the smear campaigns start to work. They serve the purpose of shifting the gaze, of changing the subject, of avoiding the real issue.

Smear campaigns are the standard no-brainer for the Zionist internet warrior. First, find your target. Second, find the high moral ground and exploit it. Third, repeat the same formula that has been known to have at least once been effective. As any advertiser will tell you, a jingle works best when it is banal and repetitive.

Let’s look at the smear campaign we’ve been following closely, the one against our frequent guest, the prolific Gilad Atzmon. Apparently, he is a popular target. He’s not a politician, so he may be attacked in a “bi-partisan” way, digging at him from various directions without fear of overstepping ideological or party lines. In fact, call him a “third positionist”, it will make you look sophisticated, because hardly anyone knows what that is supposed to mean, but is sounds catchy and intellectual. If you are facing an ethnically orientated public, calling him a self-hating Jew works a charm. It doesn’t matter whether or not it is true, you can spend a lot of time discussing it and this will increase your participation in discourse. To do this effectively, though, you have to be familiar with some of his texts. There is a rather complicated matter of his analysis of Jewish identity. That topic has been addressed extensively in his writing, but his argument is not ethnically or racially orientated, but rather at the particularly troubling aspect of adopting Jewishness as a political position. There is the little matter of the inherent supremacism that is intrinsic to the Jewish narrative as a people, which is founded on the belief that God himself had made an alliance with Jews which transcends a spiritual paradigm and borders on racism. All religions may feel themselves special, but when being special is at the expense of others, it is terribly problematic in our world. Atzmon doesn’t trash Jewish culture, he often celebrates it and makes it part of his art. It should be said, as much as he is a true cosmopolitan, he was raised as a Jew in the Jewish State. Actually, his criticism lies in making “culture” an ethical argument. Fear of contamination must play a large part when we see how vehemently many Jews who sustain that they abhor Zionism condemn Atzmon. They wish to lose no time to set themselves apart.

Those who smear Atzmon find a high moral ground in calling him an anti-Semite. However, the odd thing is, to do this they always cite a paper that Atzmon wrote in 2003, “On Anti-Semitism”. This is the formula they use. Those who do this apparently have some serious reading comprehension problems. They seem to have totally confused the idea. This paper exposes the Zionist mechanism of creating and exploiting anti-Semitism in order to assure the support of Israel. It also functions as a mechanism to assure the absence of criticism for Israel’s actions and to guarantee that Jews and non-Jews alike are silent about the human rights violations, the ethnic cleansing, assassinations, deportations, arrests without charge, the development and use of weapons of mass destruction and non-conventional warfare, all of this directed against the people who impede the Zionist project of a “Secure Israel”. This silence is carried forth regarding the US government as well, which increases the reticence of criticism. If you start criticising Israel for the things the US does, you can’t go on justifying the wars and occupations taking place in many countries across the globe for American interests. There has to be a limit.

So, having identified the target – an outspoken, well-known and articulate critic of Israel and unilateralism whose analysis gains ever more exposure and consensus; having stated the high moral ground of “outing anti-Semitism” and having regurgitated the same formula – the misrepresentation of papers by Atzmon that expose the operational mechanism of Zionism as an international system of control that assures the pre-eminence of hegemonic power of the US and Israel, all that remains is to repeat the message ad nauseum. This is the modus operandi of the smear campaign.

Self-appointed judges will put the selected victim on trial without the opportunity to defend oneself. Acquiescent and complicit media outlets will give these attacks space, regardless of the flimsy argumentation. Righteous indignation must be expressed, suspension of critical thinking is the goal, and a lot of fog is raised as the Kangaroo Court convenes.

What is left for the inquiring mind to do? How can a thinking person understand the psychodrama played out of “Zionist vs Anti-Zionist”? I suggest one thing: the re-reading of the pomo della discordia: and a propos, I reprint Gilad Atzmon’s “On Anti-Semitism”. It is a clear-sighted, prophetic, humanistic glimpse at what Israel, unchecked, is capable of doing, and what it is enabled to do by persons or nations who withhold criticism or support is. It is an important paper when it was written, but following the outrageous wars in Lebanon and Iraq, it is even more relevant today. Since the publication of the paper Gilad, has changed his mind about one issue. While in the paper he calls for Jews to stand up collectively and denounce Zionism, nowadays he realises that such a call was categorically wrong. To expect Jews to act collectively and politically is wrong: like any group of individuals, Jews are free beings. They are entitled to act against Zionism as free human beings.On Anti-Semitismby Gilad Atzmon20.12.2003

In the light of the growing discussion initiated by Israeli politicians and Zionist enthusiasts regarding the eruption of new anti-Semitism I am here to announce as loudly as I can: there is no anti-Semitism any more. In the devastating reality created by the Jewish state, anti-Semitism has been replaced by political reaction. I am not suggesting that Jewish interests are not being mutilated and vandalized. I am not saying that synagogues aren’t being attacked, that Jewish graves are not brutally smashed up. I am saying that these acts, that are in no way legitimate, should be seen as political responses rather than racially motivated acts or ‘irrational’ hate crimes. If Israel is the state of the Jewish people and the Jewish people themselves do not stand up collectively against the crimes that are committed on their behalf, then every Jewish person, Jewish symbol and Jewish object becomes an Israeli interest and a potential terrorist target. It is up to the Jewish people to take a stand against their Jewish state and to disassociate themselves from their zealous national movement. If, for instance, we woke up tomorrow morning to find that another American so-called ‘soft target’ had been blown to pieces, no one would think to suggest that it was a ‘racially motivated anti-American attack’. We would be naturally inclined to view the incident as an ‘act of terror’ against ‘American interests’. Our political analysts would probably tell us that it was a form of retaliation against ‘American colonialism’, ‘expansionism’, ‘support of Zionism’ and so forth. Since Zionists want Israel to be seen as ‘a nation among nations’ we should not treat them as a unique case. We should treat them as we do the Americans and the British who have already realised that their various expansionist interests around the world are under severe threat. If we go along with the Zionist call to regard Jewish-ness as a nationalistic category rather than a religious one, we should be consistent and regard any act against Jews as a political reaction rather than an irrational racist attack. In other words: the success of Zionism drains away any possibility of anti-Semitism.

The last statement is perplexing because it is the Zionists who tell us all the time that anti-Semitism is on the rise. Zionism is fuelled by anti-Semitism. The Zionists need anti-Semitic acts in order to justify the state of Israel as the only viable option for Jewish existence. Zionists have long understood that it is anti-Semitic acts that push Jews to support the idea of a Jewish state. Accordingly, in order to promote Zionist interests, Israel must generate significant anti-Jewish sentiment. Cruelty against Palestinian civilians is a favourite Israeli means of achieving this aim. Hence, we confront something of a vicious circle: the Israelis commit atrocities against the Palestinians; some anti-Israeli feelings mature into sporadic verbal and violent attacks against Jewish people and Jewish interests; Jews around the world feel rightly threatened and inclined to support Israel; some of those Jews emigrate to Israel; more Palestinian land is confiscated; anti-Jewish outrage around the world grows. This is apparently the Zionist perpetuum mobile.

Unfortunately, it is damn effective. It has worked since the early days of Zionism. Zionist leaders in Germany were very fast to welcome Hitler and the Nazi regime (Dr Joachim Prinz (Germany, 1933) is just one example). Sometimes, the Mossad itself has initiated attacks against Jews in order to ‘push them in the right direction ‘ (for instance, attacks against synagogues in Iraq in the 1950s).

In its perpetuation of anti-Jewish feeling Zionism has two principal aims. The first is simply to convince Jews that Israel is their safest option. The second is more interesting: to shatter any possibility for criticism of Israel. Zionist lobbies present all critical views of Israel as a form of anti-Semitism. Zionists are now very well trained in plucking on the gentile guilt string. This method is very effective because most westerners fail to grasp the vicious deception entangled within the Zionist identity. Zionism is grounded on a very specific realisation of the Jewish identity as a synthesis of racial awareness, religious awareness and nationalistic awareness.

While it is more than legitimate to criticise racist fundamentalism and nationalistic zeal, Zionists present any attack on their venture as an assault on the Jewish religion or the freedom of belief, or even the right of Jews to exist.

Let’s review some current typical Zionist arguments:

a. The ‘Elders of Zion’ syndrome: Zionists complain that Jews continue to be associated with a conspiracy to rule the world via political lobbies, media and money.

Is the suggestion of conspiracy really an empty accusation? The following list is presented with pride in several Jewish American websites.

Chris GerstenPrincipal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Administration for Children and Families at HHS

Elliott AbramsDirector of the National Security Council’s Office for Democracy, Human Rights and International Operations

Mark D. WeinbergAssistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Public Affairs

Douglas FeithUnder Secretary of Defense for Policy

Michael ChertoffHead of the Justice Department’s criminal division

Daniel KurtzerAmbassador to Israel

Cliff SobelAmbassador to the Netherlands

Stuart BernsteinAmbassador to Denmark

Nancy BrinkerAmbassador to Hungary

Frank LavinAmbassador to Singapore

Ron WeiserAmbassador to Slovakia

Mel SemblerAmbassador to Italy

Martin SilversteinAmbassador to Uruguay

Jay Lefkowitz

Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of the Domestic Policy Council

Let me assure you, in Clinton’s administration the situation was even worse. Even though the Jews only make up 1.9 per cent of the country’s population, an astounding 56 per cent of Clinton’s appointees were Jews. A coincidence? I don’t think so.We have to ask ourselves what motivates American Jews to gain such political power. Is it a genuine care for American interests? Soon, following the growing number of American casualties in Iraq, American people will start to ask themselves this very question. Since America currently enjoys the status of the world’s only super power and since all the Jews listed above declare themselves as devoted Zionists, we must begin to take the accusation that Zionists are trying to control the world very seriously. It is beyond doubt that Zionists, the most radical, racist and nationalistic Jews around, have already managed to turn America into an Israeli mission force. The world’s number one super power is there to support the Jewish state’s wealth and security matters. The one-sided pro-Zionist take on the Israeli ­Palestinian conflict, the American veto against every ‘anti-Israeli’ UN resolution, the war against Iraq and now the militant intentions against Syria, all prove beyond doubt that it is Zionist interests that America is serving. American Jewry makes any debate on whether the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ are an authentic document or rather a forgery irrelevant. American Jews (in fact Zionists) do control the world. So far they are doing pretty well for themselves at least. Whether the Americans enjoy the deterioration of their state’s affairs will no doubt be revealed soon.To read more about the subject

b. Zionists occasionally argue that if Jewish nationalism is bad so is any other form of nationalism.I would argue, however, that there is nothing wrong with nationalism. Being nationalistic,­ like being religious or loving punk music,­ is about belonging. Yet Jewish nationalism is unacceptable because it is based on racist fundaments and religious zeal. Zionism, which originally presented itself as a secular movement, developed real ambitions in relation to the land of Canaan. These aspirations were based on the Biblical promise. In fact, Zionists were very quick to transform the Holy Scriptures into a legal document. This was a radical distortion of the most sacred Jewish spiritual text but they didn’t finish there.While being Jewish is about ‘race’ (you are a Jew only if your mother is a Jew), Zionists believe that the whole of Palestine belongs solely to the Jewish people. If we articulate this idea in Zionist terms we should rather say that the whole of Palestine belongs to the Jewish race. This type of idea ought to remind us of the Nazi expansionist philosophy, but then we must remember that Zionism predates Nazi ideology. It is Jewish nationalistic ideology that introduced the idea of ‘living space’ and the expulsion of the indigenous years before Hitler was even born. Presumably, if Nazism is regarded as an unacceptable form of nationalism, Zionism should be treated the same.But Zionists won’t give up; in a righteous manner they will claim that Jews are entitled to self-determination. They will argue that Jews, like any other nation, are entitled to land. Whether this is the case or not, however, is irrelevant. Even if we agree that Jews are entitled to have a national home the existence of this national home cannot be at the expense of the Palestinians or anyone else. We tend to associate nationalism with a geographical reference. The French people, for example, are those who live in France or were born there. Similarly, the Americans are those who live in America or were born there. When it comes to Jewish nationalism there is no demand for geographical bonds but rather a special notion of geographical aspiration. Every Jew from Brooklyn (NYC) or Golders Green (London, UK) is entitled to Israeli citizenship at the expense of the Palestinian people. This form of nationalism is unique and a form of racist, expansionist colonialism. Jewish nationalism is best understood as an international imperial movement specialising in colonising Palestine. It should be noted that Palestinian nationalism is very different from its Jewish rival. It is multi-cultural and based on a multi-ethnic society. Palestinian nationalism is geographically based. It confers Palestinian identity to those who live in Palestine. Among the Palestinian people you will find Jewish Palestinians, many different Christian Palestinians, many different Muslim groups. (In discussing Palestinian identity I do not deny the possibility of ethnic clashes between the different groups.) Palestinian nationalism produces the ideal form of multi-ethnic democratic Arabic society. No wonder the American tyrant is so keen to destroy it.c. Zionists are not happy at all with the recycling of some old ‘Anti-Semitic slogans and images’. They are especially annoyed when they are blamed for the death of Jesus. (I am referring here to the Jewish American organisations’ reaction to Mel Gibson’s The Passion. Many people around the world regarded the Israeli siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem as an attempt to kill Jesus ‘again’.)

I would suggest that perhaps we should face it once and for all: the Jews were responsible for the killing of Jesus who, by the way, was himself a Palestinian Jew. But then two questions should be asked: 1. How is it that people living today feel accountable or chased for a crime committed by their great great great ancestors almost 2,000 years ago? I assume that those Jews who get angry when blamed for killing Jesus are those who identify themselves with Jesus’s killers. Those who would commit this murderous act today. Those Jews are called Zionists and they are already advancing into their sixth decade of inhuman crimes against the Palestinian people and the Arab world. Zionism, for those who do not know, is a repetition of the darkest age of the Jewish Biblical era. It isn’t that surprising therefore that Zionists have selected the most suicidal chapters in Jewish history (such as Massada and Bar Cochva) and turned them into the pillars of their reborn culture. On the other hand, we must praise the Zionists for being consistent. Zionists claim that the whole of Palestine belongs to the Jews because their Jewish ancestors lived there 2,000 ago. Jews attempting to live on confiscated Palestinian lands nowadays regard themselves as the same Jews who lived in Palestine two millennia ago. This must explain why Zionists are so offended when they are blamed for theactions of Judas. They are offended because they are all Judases. Might I remind the reader that the Judases of today are armed with hundreds of nuclear weapons without being signed to any international control treaty. 2. Why is it that the Jews who repeatedly demand that the Christian world should apologise for its involvement in previous persecutions, have never thought that it is about time that they apologised for killing Jesus? I wouldn’t ask the Italians to apologise on behalf of the Romans for their part in Christ’s killing simply because Italians do not feel remotely offended when Romans are blamed for it. I merely suggest that if a Jew feels offended when accused, this reveals attachment to the perpetrators. It might be the right time for the Jewish state to ask for forgiveness on behalf of the Jewish people for their immoral behaviour.I assume that the following lingual fact isn’t known to most gentiles. Jews do not use the name ‘Jesus’ when referring to Christ. Instead, they use the Hebrew word ‘Yeshu’ which means ‘may his name and memory be erased for ever’ (yeshu ­Yimach Shemo Vzichro). I do want to believe that most ordinary Jews are not familiar with the etymology of the name Yeshu. In Jewish the hierarchy of insults this is the gravest and most disrespectful. This combination of words is usually attached to Hitler and evils of his calibre. Jesus, it would appear, is considered by Jewish spiritual leaders as the embodiment of all evil. I ask myself if Jesus was as bad as Hitler (in the eyes of the rabbis), why is it that the Jews are so offended when blamed for killing him? Why don’t they regard his killing as the most glamorous chapter of their history?d. Zionists are always outraged when they are equated with Nazis. They will say that to claim ‘yesterday’s victims are today’s perpetrators’ is a form of ‘Holocaust denial’ and will argue that describing Israel as the root of all evil justifies the Holocaust. With great shame I have to agree that Israel’s behaviour throws some light on the persecution of Jews throughout history. Perhaps it is time to dispose of the notion of ‘Holocaust denial’. Westerners are very concerned not to be associated with any form of Holocaust denial. In some countries Holocaust denial is treated as a criminal offence. For years I have argued that Holocaust denial is not a particularly interesting subject because as a notion it is far too wide. In practice, anyone who tries to oppose the official Zionist interpretation of World War II events instantly becomes a ‘Holocaust denier’. Some Zionists went so far as to accuse Roberto Benigni of Holocaust denial when he made his masterpiece, Life is Beautiful.It is true that for quite a while the Zionists were fairly successful. They managed to stop the world from studying its history. Few people in Germany, in Israel or anywhere else know about the extensive collaboration between the Zionists and the Nazis before and during World War II. I am not a historian and the question of whether 6 million or rather 5,500,000 Jews died in the Holocaust is not really my major concern. For me, the act of killing is a catastrophe and ‘state organised serial killing’ is an unbearable and colossal catastrophe.

Accordingly, the form of Holocaust denial that really bothers me is the denial of the on-going Palestinian Holocaust. This Holocaust is documented and covered daily by the western media. The turning of residential Palestinian cities into concentration camps; the deliberate starvation of the Palestinian population; the withholding of medical aid from Palestinian civilians; the wall that tears the holy land into isolated cantons and Bantustans; the continuous bombardment of civilians by the IAF ­ are known to us all. This Holocaust is committed by the Jewish state with the support of world Jewry. This Holocaust, despite being well documented, is largely ignored. This is the most serious form of Holocaust denial. Moreover, I would suggest that the Zionists promote the issue of Holocaust denial so as to spread heavy smoke in an attempt to hide their own atrocities. The Zionists are the ones to be blamed for committing a holocaust and being the first to deny it. Israel and the Zionist venture are principally responsible for any anti-Jewish outrage. It is time for Jews to stand up against their nationalistic movement. It is time for the world to stand up against the Zionist crime. As we learn from a recent EU poll, 58 per cent of Europeans regard Israel as the biggest threat to world peace. They are right. The Jewish state must be stopped and the sooner the better. At this point some Zionists would try to revise their argument and claim that real anti-Semitism is in fact a form of blind hatred towards Jews regardless of their politics and misdoings. They would say that a Jew is hated just for being a Jew. My response would be that though such hatred might exist it needn’t be labelled ‘anti-Semitism’. It is xenophobia, defined by the Oxford Dictionary as an ‘intense dislike or fear of foreigners or strangers’. Perhaps Jews aren’t so unique after all.